Are We on the Cusp of a New Political Order?
About this episode
Historian Gary Gerstle argues that durable political orders form when one party's framework becomes so dominant the opposition acquiesces, as the Cold War consolidated the New Deal order behind progressive taxation, unions, Social Security, and public investment. The neoliberal order, he says, collapsed after 2008 exposed financial instability and an unequal recovery, with 2016 marking its endpoint. In the current interregnum, both parties converge on China hawkishness, tariffs, reshoring, antitrust, and industrial policy, increasingly treating markets as tools serving national, family, or climate goals. They debate Project 2025's mix of industrial policy and moral agenda, the right's 'remoralization' politics, and whether Democrats cede moral questions. Gerstle concludes America is 'on the cusp of a genuinely new basis for politics'; Klein agrees a post-neoliberal turn is real but questions its coherence and direction.